America's First Bank Dollar Seeks Wider Audience. Bloomberg revealed on Monday October 19 that JPMorgan was expanding its JPM Coin to Ethereum. Launched on Base in November 2025, the deposit token wins the first decentralized finance network while Wall Street is already banking on public chains.
The key points of this article:
JPMorgan is expanding its JPM Coin (JPMD), a dollar deposit token, to Ethereum for its approved institutional clients.
The bank highlights the superior liquidity of Ethereum and its already established presence among institutional clients.
The token remains available on Base, layer-2 of Coinbase, where it was launched in November 2025.
Kinexys, the bank's blockchain division, claims more than $4 trillion in cumulative transactions.
Ethereum, choice of reason for JPMorgan's dollar
JPM Coin represents dollar deposits held at JPMorgan. The bank is now opening it to its institutional clients approved on Ethereum, in addition to Base. Emma Landriault heads Kinexys Labs, the blockchain division of the establishment. Questioned by Bloomberg, she puts forward two reasons: the liquidity of the network, deeper than its competitors, and its institutional clients, who already use it.
Crypto companies will be able to use it for their on-chain payments. Financial institutions will find the means to settle transactions or post guarantees.
“Tokenized financial infrastructure is no longer theoretical. It is already restructuring the liquidity, settlement and flows of digital assets”
said Emma Landriault in a statement sent to The Block.
Transfers remain reserved for participants approved by the bank. No JPMD for individuals. JPMorgan also did not respond to questions from Cointelegraph on Monday.
From Base to Ethereum, an extension already written
The trajectory was set. After a pilot phase opened in June 2025, JPMorgan launched its JPMD in November on Base (the layer-2 of Coinbase). As early as January, Kinexys announced with Digital Asset a native broadcast on the Canton Network, before this new course on Ethereum. The mechanics do not change. Via a Blockchain Deposit Account, the client exchanges a balance in dollars for tokens which circulate between approved counterparties and are redeemed from the bank.
Why does this detail matter? A deposit token replaces traditional, often slow banking rails with near-instant settlement. The counter remains the bank. But the currency becomes programmable and available 24 hours a day, with automatic reconciliation on a shared register.
The deposit is considerable. Kinexys processes an average of $7 billion per day and boasts over $4 trillion in cumulative transactions since its launch. On the Ethereum side, nearly $50 billion is locked in the network's DeFi applications according to DeFiLlama. JPMorgan now wants to tap into this pool.
The bank is also making progress on collective projects. It participates in the Swift blockchain registry with more than 30 establishments. And a consortium bringing together JPMorgan, Citi, Bank of America and Wells Fargo is preparing a common network of tokenized deposits, expected in early 2027 according to the Wall Street Journal. Six major Canadian banks are following the same lead, while IBM has just plugged its digital assets platform into Swift. Switching to a public chain like Ethereum, however, remains a step above.
